Agilent provides its own software, Agilent GUI Datalogger, for measurement automation which is very convenient. However it is not a big deal to write a custom code for the Agilent DMMs if there is a necessity, for instance, to control some different devices from one program. Here is a screen shot of Agilent GUI Datalogger with the list of commands and the connection parameters:

Monday, February 1, 2010

Some of multimeters as Fluke 189 or 289, for instance, can be connected to a computer. That allows easily to setup communication with such a device and automate measurements. Fluke 189/289 needs Fluke IR189USB cable for that. While it is USB port physical connection it's represented as a serial COM port on operating system level.

Has to be mentioned that Fluke provides its own software to communicate with the DMMs: FlukeView Forms. Nevertheless due to simplicity of the interface connection can be easily controlled from available in Windows HyperTerminal, for example, or from a simple custom program or script. The detailed list of commands and parameters of the communication protocol can be found here.

To set it up:

Install drivers for corresponding operating system. FTDI USB chip is used in the cable, a corresponding driver is available for downloading from here.

Connect a Fluke 189/289 to a computer USB port.

Check what port number was assigned for the Fluke multimeter: Start/MyComputer/Properties/Hardware/Device Manager/Ports

Open a serial terminal program, for example, Hyperterminal in Windows, choose the port and setup parameters of the connection as 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

Send commands and read responses:

Reading a currently measured value is done by sending out Query Measurement "QM" command. Identification "ID" command can be used to find automatically that port which Fluke DMM was assigned to.